The year is 2024, and controversial topics have taken center stage in politics and social climes. One of them has been the Black Lives Matter movement. And one Jacksonville, Florida, teacher suffered for expressing her support for it.
The teacher, Amy Donofrio, was dismissed for displaying a Black Lives Matter flag outside her high school classroom. Donofrio lost her right to teach as a result, but after a long battle, she can finally reapply for it.
This is thanks to the verdict of a five-member panel of Florida’s Education Practices Commission. They agreed with an administrative judge’s recommendation that Donofrio, who state officials accused of indoctrinating students, get a written reprimand.
Donofrio hopes to return to the job she believes she was born to do. However, the school administrators did not renew her contract with the school after the 2020-21 school year.
Her attorney, Mark Richard, expressed satisfaction with the verdict. He called it a big day for Florida teachers as Donofrio’s case proves teachers can challenge and defeat the system attacking them.
The verdict was given at a hearing several weeks after administrative law judge Suzanne Van Wyk recommended that Donofrio get a written reprimand for wearing and showing off face masks that read “Robert E. Lee was a gang member.”
Many have described Donofrio, a white woman who taught primarily black students, as a beloved and highly respected high school teacher in Jacksonville. She has carefully earned this reputation in the years she spent empowering her students and advocating for racial justice.
Her actions and the way they resonated with her students led to the creation of the EVAC movement associated with racial justice. It caught national attention and saw students travel to the White House in 2016 where they met with congressional leaders.
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The students even met with Then-President Barack Obama when he visited Jacksonville. There are testimonies from past students of Donofrio’s describing her as a “rock” and a “second mom,” all of which highlight her dedication to her job.
The love her students have for her became even more apparent because of how they responded to the school’s treatment of her. After her dismissal, her students collected almost 18,000 signatures on a public petition clamoring for her reinstatement.
Donofrio never faltered in her belief that she lost her job because of her outspokenness on controversial race issues. She said her skills as a teacher were nearly flawless, but the officials had problems with how blatantly she expressed her ideas.
A good example was putting up a large “Black Lives Matter” banner outside her classroom following George Floyd’s demise.
Administrators ordered her to remove it, claiming it might violate school district policy. However, she refused, and after five months, they did it themselves. A day later, they reassigned Donofrio to a district warehouse and she has not taught in a Florida classroom since 2021.
Florida’s former education commissioner boasted about the action they took against her practices, which they tagged as an example of “indoctrination” and “critical race theory” in schools.
“There was an entire classroom memorialized to Black Lives Matter,” the former commissioner, Richard Corcoran, said at the time. “We made sure she was terminated.”
Donofrio ultimately sued Duval County Public Schools and its regional high school superintendent in federal court in April 2021. She won, and the school board paid $300,000 to settle the lawsuit that year.
This year, Donofrio will be able to reapply for her teaching license, which means she can return to doing the good work as a quality teacher.
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Donofrio’s case is an example of teachers fighting against a system pushing them to teach false history. She is, but a sample of those who continue to stand firmly behind their beliefs and values.
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